FR26.11 Lourmarin
After all the hubbub surrounding the Gypsy procession in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, we were due for another quaint and calm village. In addition, we wanted to start moving in the general direction of Aix-en-Provence.
So, employing our extremely sophisticated and highly successful method for finding our next destination, we came across Lourmarin.
And once again, we were not disappointed!
Finding a suitable park-up for Wilma, however, proved a little more difficult. So we decided to try a new app called “Campspace” and booked a night with Virginie. She runs a B&B with a pool and offers two pitches for tents or campervans.
Exactly what we needed.
And a pool!
Not being used to this new app, however, we managed to create some confusion with our very early arrival. We hadn’t realised that Campspace properties have check-in times, although we had messaged our ETA in advance. In the end, everything worked out fine, but we did interrupt Virginie’s lunch break, which we felt a little bad about.
The pitch itself was very slanted and even the levelling blocks didn’t, well… level anything. There wasn’t much we could do about it, so we accepted that the night would involve a constant uphill battle with our pillows and made our way into town.
Lourmarin was buzzing with life, but it wasn’t packed and it didn’t feel overrun. Just the right amount of life in a village for our liking. We quickly found a nice-looking coffee shop and treated ourselves to iced coffees.
Like many of the villages we have visited so far, Lourmarin sits in hilly countryside and offers wonderful views over the surrounding landscape. Naturally, there is a château and a lovely old town to stroll through.
We wandered into a Panama hat shop called drumroll 🥁 … Panama! Sadly, I don’t have the kind of head that works with these hats, but they’re cool nonetheless.
We ended up chatting with the owner for a while and, once he realised we were German, he suddenly disappeared.
This left us slightly puzzled and wondering whether we had accidentally said something wrong.
A few moments later he returned carrying a wallet.
He explained that he had seen it fall out of a cyclist’s back pocket but hadn’t been able to get the owner’s attention. Looking through the wallet, he had discovered that the owner was German and there was a business card with a phone number inside. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had any luck calling it and suspected his phone provider was somehow blocking international calls.
Assuming we also had a German number, he asked if we could try calling so he could return the wallet.
How thoughtful and kind of him!
Of course we were happy to help. I called the number and the owner picked up almost immediately. He hadn’t even realised the wallet was missing and was incredibly grateful for the honesty of the shop owner.
We arranged the handover and later that evening the owner of the wallet got in touch again to let us know everything had worked out.
It’s nice to see there are still incredibly honest people in the world and that sometimes all it takes is a single phone call to help.
Having sorted all that out, we continued strolling through the streets and treated ourselves once more at Café Gaby.
This time it was a cold beer and a refreshing eau de pompe 🍸🚰
After a while we both decided we had seen enough for one day and that the pool was calling our names.
We headed back to Virginie’s and went straight for a swim. A very welcome way to cool down!
During dinner we made a new friend.
The house dog came over and demanded to be played with. He brought along his favourite ball — or what was left of it — and for a good 45 minutes never got tired of us throwing it as far as possible.
Once satisfied with his retrieval duties, he rolled onto his back and demanded belly rubs and attention.
Yet another fantastic day in Provence!